Is ANC support below the DA? Well sort of, but not really …

Don’t tell the ANC, but it turns out there is a limit to South Africans’ patience. 

A number of new polls in recent weeks have presented some startling new figures which demand deeper interrogation. Most sensationally, a poll by the Institute of Race Relations (IRR) put the DA’s support at 30.3% – above the 29.7% support for the ANC for the first time.

It largely corroborates the equally alarming results of a poll from the Social Research Foundation (SRF) about a month ago, which put the ANC’s support at about 32%, with the DA at 25%, and 15% of voters “undecided”.

Should we read from this that the ANC has entirely surrendered its position as South Africa’s saviour-in-chief, and that Helen Zille should be buffing her inauguration speech?

Well, no, not really. It turns out that the real trick lies in interpreting these numbers. 

“To assume this is what would happen in an election tomorrow is unrealistic,” says Gareth van Onselen, who runs Victory Research and knows more about the art of polling than most people will have forgotten.

“There are three limitations to the IRR poll. First, it contained no turnout modelling; second, the issue that is impacting party support, VAT, has yet to fully play out; and third, based on broader polling, those disaffected ANC voters are most likely to return to the ANC in the short term.”

Nonetheless, says Van Onselen, it does tell us that the ANC’s support for a VAT increase has hurt it profoundly, and benefited those parties that opposed it.

Van Onselen says more likely, if an election were held tomorrow, the ANC would get between 40% and 45%, the DA 23%-25%, the MK Party 12%-15%, and the EFF 6%-9%. These numbers are remarkably akin to the outcome of last May’s election, where the ANC scraped to 40.2%, and the DA scored 21.8%. 

This is consistent with a poll this month from the Brenthurst Foundation, which is modelled using the actual turnout from last May’s election.

“Both the ANC and the DA have improved their voter support since the May 2024 election. When modelled for a voter turnout of 58%, the ANC wins 43% (40% in 2024) and the DA 27%,” wrote veteran researchers Ray Hartley and Greg Mills. 

By contrast, the two biggest critics of the coalition government have lost support, the MK Party falling to 11% from 15%, and the EFF to 7% from 10%.

Seen in this context, it might not look like a seismic shift in our politics. And yet, these new polls are deeply illuminating – echoing a real shift which all the political parties will no doubt have seen, and which will have some more panicked than others. 

“The most telling thing, if you look at three major polls over the past six months, is that up until now, the ANC’s support has been immune to specific issues,” says Van Onselen. 

“Whatever happened, their support remained stubbornly above 50% – but what current polling suggests is that there is now a chunk of ANC voters who are highly fluid, by no means locked in to the party, and willing to opt out or switch support on a case-by-case basis.”

Era of impunity is over

The first sign of the ANC’s vulnerability emerged in a poll by the SRF last May, weeks before the election, when President Cyril Ramaphosa made a performative show of signing National Health Insurance (NHI) into law. 

And yet, contrary to the ANC’s own belief that a populist health-care measure ought to boost its numbers, its support tanked 5% within a week to 40.8% – a level from which it largely never recovered.

The foundation attributed this to the ANC misreading its own base. 

“The ANC greatly miscalculated here in assuming that the signing would be read as a statement of social solidarity,” the SRF explained. “Given that several million middle- and aspirant middle-class people make use of private medical care … the announcement was broadly interpreted as an attack on middle- and aspirant middle-class standards of living.”

Today, the issue is a VAT hike from 15% to 16% – another deeply unpopular tax that the ANC members in government have supported, and something which the DA has vociferously, and loudly, rejected. Like NHI, this has manifested in the poll numbers.

“For the first time, we are seeing issues like VAT, the Expropriation Act and NHI actually affecting a significant number of voters who would identify as ANC supporters,” says Van Onselen. “This is a potentially encouraging sign of maturity in our politics – that there are a section of core ANC voters making judgments on contemporary affairs, as opposed to voting in blind faith.”

Or put another way, the era of ANC impunity is over. South Africans, worn down by the ANC’s promises, are no longer cutting it the sort of slack they used to.

A fluid ANC voter base, willing to adjust to specific issues, speaks to an entirely new world, and underscores how much political capital the party burnt over the past 30 years.

This trend is evident in all the four major polls held since the last election, two by the SRF, the Brenthurst Foundation poll done by SABI Strategy and one from the IRR. 

Ralph Mathekga, an independent political analyst, says the newest polls might overstate the fall in ANC support, but this is nonetheless a watershed moment in South Africa’s political trajectory. 

“These polls do speak to the deeper issue, which is that the DA is now increasingly being seen by the black electorate as a party able to halt ANC corruption, thanks to the VAT hike” he says. “The DA has always tried to do that, but this time the electorate was primed to hear that message, as this is a tax hike which directly affects them.” 

For the ANC, Mathekga says, the picture looks dire. Not only does the party appear increasingly tone-deaf, it suggests the party has fallen out with the wider population that it claims to service. 

“The tax issue shows how the ANC has lost the moral high ground. When [finance minister] Enoch Godongwana said the government needed a tax hike to fund its social priorities, what the voters heard is the party wants to continue funding corruption and its cadres,” he says.

Deftness required

The extent of the ANC’s slide is perhaps most eloquently expressed in the response of its former spokesperson and national executive committee member Khusela Diko. 

In an ill-tempered rant on social media, Diko took aim at the messenger, attacking the IRR as “the same ‘independent’ [organisation] that just excitedly released a new poll extolling the values of the DA”, saying it must “truly think we are fools”. 

The truth is, the complexion for the DA isn’t as rosy as the IRR poll might suggest – but the party is unarguably in a far better position than the ANC.

Mathekga says the DA could capitalise on this moment, provided it handles this deftly. If it uses this moment to demonstrate to voters what it can achieve by simply making the right calls on big economic issues, it could do well in the local government elections next year. 

At the very least, Mathekga says, the DA should aim to convert the slice of middle-class voters still in the ANC fold and susceptible to economic arguments.

Van Onselen warns that while the DA will no doubt feel emboldened by these numbers, it shouldn’t feel too cocky.  “The party has a history of doing well between elections, and then shedding support as the real campaign begins,” he says. 

“The DA’s challenge has always been, and remains, the ability to translate what is current potential interest among a significant number of black voters into sustained, deep and strong support [that] can withstand the inevitable onslaught of racial politics to which the DA is subject during election campaigns.”